This moist and delicious Gluten Free Coffee Cake with Pears is the perfect breakfast or brunch for company during the holidays! It’s gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and nut free.
We’re back with another amazing breakfast or brunch recipe! This Gluten Free Pear Coffee Cake is perfect for cold fall mornings or holiday family brunches.
It has warming spices combined with soft pears and a beautiful crumb streusel. So good!
Some of my favorite childhood memories involve home baked breakfasts, like scones, baked oatmeal, and coffee cakes. While this isn’t something you’ll want to eat every morning, it is perfect for weekend breakfasts at home or brunch with friends.
Our coffee cake is allergy friendly and vegan, too. You won’t miss the dairy or gluten in nut free coffee cake. It’s also soy free and top 8 allergen free as well, so it fits many special diets!
How to make gluten free coffee cake with pears
Making a gluten free coffee cake is pretty simple: you’ll first mix up your batter, then you’ll add your streusel topping, bake your coffee cake, let it cool a bit, then serve. Simple!
We left the peel on the pears for this recipe since the peel has more fiber in it (making this a little bit healthier) and the peel softens up nicely in the oven so you won’t even know the peel is still on the diced pears.
Plus, not peeling the pears save a little extra time while making this recipe, so this recipe is even easier to make!
Variations for this vegan coffee cake
You can add more ginger to this recipe if you like. I didn’t add very much ground ginger since I didn’t want our dairy free coffee cake overpowering since it can be strong and not everyone likes ginger.
But if you love the taste of ginger, you can add more ground ginger to this recipe. You can even experiment with a little fresh ginger as well, though start out small (like 1/4 teaspoon) since a little goes a long way.
One fun variation for this coffee cake recipe is adding a layer of streusel to the middle of the pear coffee cake in addition to the top. You can do this easily by following these steps:
- Double the streusel in this recipe
- Pour half your batter into the prepared pan
- Sprinkle half the streusel on top of the first layer of batter
- Pour the rest of the batter on top of the batter and streusel, smoothing it out
- Sprinkle the rest of the streusel on top and bake
Check out our other great breakfast and brunch recipes:
- Pumpkin Spice Donuts
- Instant Pot Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
- Gluten Free Baked Oatmeal
- Gluten Free Zucchini Muffins
- Scrambled Egg Cups
- Homemade Turkey Breakfast Sausage
Gluten Free Coffee Cake with Pears (Vegan)
Ingredients
Coffee cake:
- 1 ¼ cups whole grain sorghum flour OR brown rice flour
- ¼ cup ground golden flaxseed
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (or 1 teaspoon for more cinnamon flavor)
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger (or 1/2 teaspoon for more ginger flavor)
- 1 cup diced pears, unpeeled
- 1 cup rice milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- ⅔ cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup light tasting olive oil (or other light tasting oil)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Streusel topping:
- ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup whole grain sorghum flour OR brown rice flour
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Dash salt
- 2 Tablespoons dairy free stick butter (we used Country Crock Avocado Oil plant butter sticks)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8×8-inch baking pan with parchment paper, or spray the bottom with spray oil. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the sorghum flour, ground flaxseed, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger. Set aside.
- Wash and dice your pear and set aside.
- In another medium bowl, whisk together the rice milk, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla.
- Add the rice milk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk together. Add the diced pears and stir.
- Allow the batter to rest and thicken a bit for 1-2 minutes and stir again.
- While the batter is resting, prepare the streusel topping: stir together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut in the dairy free butter until crumbly.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan, top with the streusel topping, and bake for 35 minutes.
- Allow the coffee cake to cool for 10 minutes before slicing and eating warm.
- Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist
Hello, can I use a GF baking blend in place of the rice flour? Thank you!
Hi Tiffany, I’m not sure how gluten free baking blend would work in here since it has xanthan gum, with the flaxseed it might get a gummy texture. You can try using a GF flour blend without the flaxseed and adjusting the liquids, I can’t guarantee the results though since I haven’t tried making this recipe with GF flour blend.
This sounds so lovely!
Do you think that this cake can be frozen? I live alone, and three days isn’t enough time for me to finish this!
I can try halving the recipe, but I’d much rather do the whole thing if freezing is feasible.
Thanks a lot!!
Take care
Hi Nick! I haven’t tried freezing this yet, but I’m pretty sure this would be fine frozen, most of our baked goods do pretty well in the freezer 🙂
Thank you!
I made it last night, and it was even better than I thought it’d be! Will be remaking this in the future for sure.
Greetings 🙂
Could I use tinned diced pears or will they be too wet?
Thanks
Hi Tracy, I think they might be too wet for this recipe, but you could try it if you didn’t have fresh pears. Just make sure to thoroughly drain the pears before using.
I followed this recipe exactly, and a toothpick came out cleanly after 35 minutes, but this cake had a soggy bottom and had raw dough. I used a 8 by 8 inch pan and my oven runs a little hot, so I think I did something wrong in the mix or the recipe needs more time in the oven. The pears not very ripe, so they did not add alot of extra moisture. Not sure where it came from. I scooped up several servings upside down into another pan and baked 15 minutes more in my air fryer and that helped, but still kind of stodgy. It had decent flavor, so that was a plus.
Sorry to hear that Mims, if your oven runs hot, it’s possible it cooked the edges and top faster than the inside. I’d recommend using a glass pan for more even cooking (I’m not sure if your pan was glass or metal), lowering your oven temp a little (your oven at 325 might be closer to a real 350), and add a little bit of time (adding about 5-10 minutes more to your baking time). This does need to cool a bit to set up firmly before cutting and serving.
This cake was amazing! So moist! Loved the pear!
Thank you so much Weslie!
Hi, what can I sub the brown sugar with? I’m pre diabetics so I try to consume less sugar
Hi Yoshian, you can use something like Swerve brown sugar replacement, the Truvia brown sugar replacement, the Lakanto brown sugar substitute, or coconut sugar (though this is lower glycemic it won’t be sugar free). I have not baked with these subs, so I’m not sure how they will bake in this recipe. But these should be fine in this recipe.
what can i sub the ground golden flaxseed with?
Hi Kayley, you can sub the ground flaxseed with psyllium, ground chia seeds, egg replacer powder (probably 2 Tablespoons mixed with water according to package directions if using something like Bob’s Red Mill), or 1 egg. The flaxseed acts as a binder in this recipe in place of eggs, so any replacement needs to have the same binding qualities.